Four Flaws Your CEO Doesn’t Know About Your Cybersecurity

July 6, 2018

Four Flaws Your CEO Doesn’t Know About Your Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is a significant concern for companies who want to keep their assets safe — and with good reason. According to the PwC Global Economic Crime Report, cybercrime is the second most reported economic crime, which affected 31% of organizations. Other reports show that phishing attacks were responsible for 95% of malware sent to companies, including giants such as Facebook and Google. Any company can become a target of cyber-attacks, regardless of its size or resources.

Millions of dollars are lost each year as a result of cybercrime, and there are numerous causes of the issue. Due to organizations nurturing the mentality that these attacks can’t be stopped and company executives unaware of all the cybersecurity risks for their organization, the economics of being a bad guy on the internet have become quite good.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way, as there are effective cybersecurity solutions for many of these threats. Here are four flaws your CEO doesn’t know about your cyber security, and what can be done about them:

Your Software and Hardware Is Outdated
If your hardware is out of date, the odds are that you won’t be able to update software to the latest version either. When software isn’t regularly patched up, that poses a significant security risk. Older versions of plugins like Java can be a vulnerability that a web-based attack might exploit. Through this outdated software, hackers can gain entry into your system and launch cyber-attacks. When acquiring new hardware, the company should be aware of how many updates it will support. Additionally, automatic patching is a right way of keeping software up to date without the hassle of having to do it yourself.

The Organization Has No Plan In Case of Cyber Attack
According to the 2016 NTT Group Global Threat Intelligence Report, a whopping 77% of organizations were unprepared to deal with cyber-attacks and their consequences. This number may be decreasing slowly, as 32% of organizations had an incident response plan in 2017. However, it’s apparent that the general lack of a recovery plan is a significant problem, and the costs are enormous. Companies lose brand reputation, pay for technical support to restore systems, and on top of that, they lose productivity and revenue due to downtime and system availability problems. Investing in proactive protection could help solve this issue, as well as planning for it.Belief in the Myth of No Preemptive Cybersecurity
Unfortunately, the reactive mindset is what gets many organizations into cybersecurity trouble, as the data mentioned above shows. However, preemptive cybersecurity systems that can eliminate threats and mitigate risks before they turn into breaches can improve the situation immensely.Area 1 Security’s comprehensive anti-phishing service stops phishing before it ever becomes a threat. As the leading cause of cybersecurity breaches, phishing is extremely dangerous and very easy to overlook at the same time. Against BEC phishing emails, anti-spoofing technology doesn’t work because it’s outward-facing, which leaves an organization vulnerable. With our proactive phishing protection solution, the company won’t get breached.

There is a Lack of a Cybersecurity Accountability
A company’s cybersecurity policy can implement and define best cybersecurity practices for the organization. Policies on acceptable use, network security, remote access, BYOD practices, email, and communications, as well as encryption and privacy can help cover all the bases of cybersecurity. As an added benefit, a cybersecurity policy also educates the employees on how they’re expected to protect company data.

But even governments and corporations with the best cybersecurity policies will continue to be vulnerable if they work with companies that aren’t accountable. At Area 1 Security, we believe strongly that our job is to keep our clients safe, period. That’s why we’re taking steps to provide performance-based protection. After all, companies should only pay for solutions that work.

We take preemptive cybersecurity protection seriously at Area 1 Security. If you want to work with a company that is providing powerful, proactive solutions to today’s vexing cybersecurity challenges, seek us out on the web, at https://www.area1security.com/solutions/.